


even if the endless sadness robs you away

by etoilette



Series: AU-gust 2020 [1]
Category: Persona 5
Genre: Blood, Come Inflation, Demons, Dirty Talk, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Multiple Personalities, Rough Sex, Slut Shaming, Subspace
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:20:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25658863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/etoilette/pseuds/etoilette
Summary: “He was going to break you,” he says.“It’s what I deserve.”“You don’t deserve that.”“How would you know? You don’t know me. Don’t know what I was, and who I used to be.” His Contractor runs a shaking hand through his hair, lingering slightly at where the Named Demon had been clutching at before. “I…”The Nameless Demon waits patiently, but his Contractor never finishes his sentence.ORAfter being saved from being a human sacrifice by the very demon he was going to be offered to, a guilt-ridden Akechi wanders the remnants of the Metaverse, a strange and two-faced demon his only companion.(Prompt #1 of AU-gust: Fantasy AU)
Relationships: Akechi Goro/Amamiya Ren, Akechi Goro/Kurusu Akira, Akechi Goro/Persona 5 Protagonist
Series: AU-gust 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1860436
Comments: 12
Kudos: 146





	even if the endless sadness robs you away

**Author's Note:**

> Additional TW: rape/noncon mention
> 
> This is SO LONG. I wrote all of this in basically a day, and I'm pooped, haha. I can't keep this up for the entire month, and I doubt all of my prompt fills will be porn. That's sort of why I'm uploading my AU-gust stuff as a series rather than one fic (which was my original intention). I have More Context if needed in the end notes (because while this premise is understandable, in my opinion, I also get that it's quite a lot), but please just think of this as an excuse to write demon sex. Even though I barely took advantage of the demonic aspect of it. 
> 
> This is for the prompt 'Fantasy AU' - it was meant to be Inuyasha, but I was talking to my friend in Discord and we came up with sort of this instead (tongue tattoo hot). It's still a FANTASY AU, in my opinion, even though it takes place in canon, technically speaking lol. 
> 
> As per usual, please tell me if I missed a tag; I try to tag everything I think is necessary, but I don't like to clutter a fic with too many tags, so I might also not have included an important one just because I didn't have it in my mind. Tagging is arguably the hardest part of uploading a fic, I now realize. Due to time constraints, I also did not carefully edit this one, so I'll come back later and do so when I have more free time, but for now, please just...ignore any typos lol.

According to the Nameless Demon’s calculations, it’s been about three weeks in human time since his Contractor escaped from the human world to live in between dimensions indefinitely. On very rare occasions, he slips back into the human world, only ever to buy food, always hidden under the shroud of shadows provided by the Nameless Demon.

He watches his Contractor as he stalks through the never-ending labyrinth of the Shadow Dimension, his back straight and proud, the gun clutched in his left hand. 

“Is there a particular target you are after, my Contractor?” the Nameless Demon asks, his voice deep and low in his Contractor’s ear. “Or perhaps, this is simply you seeking to expel some frustration? I could help you with the latter, if you so wish.”

“Shut up,” his Contractor snaps. The Nameless Demon feels a shiver of excitement down his spine; it’s been days since he heard his Contractor say words beyond feral snarls and carnal moans. 

Ever since the Nameless Demon branded his Contractor as _his_ , his crest seared into his Contractor’s tongue, his Contractor’s been sullen and silent. _I don’t want people to see the crest and ask me questions_ , he had said, before refusing to answer any of the Nameless Demon’s cajoling and arguments that no one in the Shadow Dimension would care.

The Nameless Demon flaps his wings once, propelling himself easily and lazily through the air as he glides next to his Contractor, who stiffens immediately, turning his head away. It’s his usual response, whenever the Nameless Demon gets too close. The Nameless Demon doesn’t know exactly _why_ his Contractor hates his form, but it tickles him that he can arouse such a reaction with his existence alone. 

“A family of Bugs have made their home somewhere here. They’re disruptive, and I would rather deal with them now before they multiply and decide to raid our home for resources,” his Contractor says at last.

His Contractor is exceptionally wordy today, and the Nameless Demon grins, the smile splitting in an inhuman fashion on his face.

“How domestic,” he croons.

His Contractor glares up at him, the brown gaze glowing red under the dim lighting of the Shadow Dimension. “It won’t be your home after today if you insist on being cheeky.”

With every word, the Nameless Demon could see the dark red circle, embedded with thorns, on his Contractor’s tongue, curling around every syllable. The satisfaction that pulses through him at the sight of ownership makes him purr deep in his throat and he floats closer to his Contractor’s shoulder, wanting to eat up any warmth his Contractor is willing to share.

But his Contractor, ever a tease, simply speeds up, until the Nameless Demon is forced to actively flap his wings to keep up, rather than floating along like in a lazy river.

It doesn’t take long before they find the Bugs. The demons are screeching and chattering excitedly to each other as they rip into an Orobas they must have killed, their sharp teeth biting into red flesh. Blood seeps from their open stomach, leaking out from the empty eyes of the skulls protruding slightly from the hole. 

“Look at these vile creatures,” the Nameless Demon exclaims loudly, his arm sweeping in a theatrical arc. “It’ll take only a second for me to erase these fools. I -”

His Contractor cuts him off by shooting out the head of the closest Bugs with his gun. Sudden silence permeates the area; the Bugs pause in their feeding frenzy, their teeth stained with red as they gape at the corpse of their fallen brethren. But his Contractor is ruthless. He shoots twice, thrice, and yet another time. Each shot lands true, and one after one, the Bugs fall lifelessly to the ground until only two are left.

“It’s the Black Mask,” one of them hisses. “I’ve heard of him before.”

 _Bang!_

But the Bugs dodges the shot and charges towards his Contractor, mouth open and ready to bite a hole in the human’s neck. The Nameless Demon snarls and rushes forward, easily grabbing the Bugs out of the air and crushing it into ooze with barely a thought. Black stains his claws and the last remaining Bugs hesitates, cowering behind the half-eaten Orobas.

“I’m not the Black Mask anymore,” his Contractor says, an unreadable tone in his voice. He methodically re-loads his gun. “I’m not much of anything anymore, really.”

He holds up the gun, aims, and pulls the trigger in one smooth motion. The Bugs screams, withering on the ground, little plush hands coming up as if to clutch at the hole in his throat, but soon, those cries fade away. The Bugs disappears into ooze, the black mixing with the red gore of the Orobas corpse.

“Are you hungry for horse meat?” The Nameless Demon asks, leaning down and sniffing delicately at the Orobas. “Horse curry would taste strange, but I think it would work.”

“I’m not hungry for anything anymore. You know that. Stop saying stupid shit.”

The Nameless Demon turns, and his Contractor is already walking away. With a long-suffering sigh, the Nameless Demon follows. 

Time and distance no longer mean anything to the two of them, as there is no way to tell day from night when they are inside the Shadow Dimension. Sometimes the Nameless Demon counts the number of footsteps that his Contractor takes to judge how far or near something is from the little space they’ve carved as a home for themselves. But his Contractor barely uses the same pace, as if to spite the Nameless Demon’s habit.

The “home” is a gutted remnant of Mementos - half of a subway carriage that his Contractor has repurposed into a miniature trailer. He spends his days sleeping on the ruined seats, eating canned food, and reading the same book over and over again.

It’s a quiet and boring existence, in the Nameless Demon’s opinion, but considering the dire straits he had seen his Contractor in at the beginning of their acquaintance, he supposes that his Contractor wouldn’t want to go back to the human world. Not after his own father tried to sacrifice him in exchange for a leashed demon.

The Nameless Demon can still remember how his first sight in the human world had been his Contractor, bleeding from deep gashes over his chest, white leaking slowly from between his parted legs. His dark red eyes were hollow, but as soon as he laid eyes on the Nameless Demon, they’d widened and his dry lips moved around a word. A name. A name that the Nameless Demon knew no longer belonged to him.

The sight spurned the Nameless Demon into massacring the rest of the humans around the alter, starting directly from the bald man he knew instinctively to be his new Contractor’s father. He could still remember the warm syrup of the man’s blood, could still remember the sweetness of his Contractor’s mouth when he forced his tongue inside, caressing the small human tongue with his own and carving the contract into his Contractor’s flesh.

His Contractor doesn’t seem interested in nostalgia, sitting cross-legged on one of the seats, carelessly thumbing through the worn copy of _Arsene Lupin vs Herlock Sholmes_ in his hands. But that doesn’t last long before he pulls out a worn black chess piece, caressing it idly in his hand. The distant look in his Contractor’s eyes stirs a deep anger in his chest, but the Nameless Demon knows that the emotion is not his own.

 **Down** , he thinks to the other inside of him. **Not now. He’s tired.**

But the other demon - the Named Demon, as the Nameless Demon refers to him as - does not wait and the Nameless Demon feels his consciousness pushed aside to make way for the other. It is always a strange feeling, watching his body move when under the control of the other. Like a lucid dream, almost, except nothing the Named Demon ever does using their shared body is _good_.

“Akechi,” the Named Demon growls. 

His Contractor’s head jerks up from the book, his eyes wide with fear and something else. “Ren?” 

That’s what the Nameless Demon believes his Contractor says anyway. There is always a strange static filling his ears when he hears his Contractor talk to the Named Demon, his words muffled and hard to decipher at the best of times. 

The Named Demon grabs his Contractor by the shoulders and forces him to the ground. His Contractor’s hands scrabble for the chess piece, tries to hold onto it again, but the Named Demon grabs his hand with a vicious snarl. Grabs the other hand in the same grip, forcing his Contractor’s arms above his head. 

“Ren!” his Contractor yells, struggling on his stomach. But he doesn’t tell the Named Demon to stop.

Despite the fearsome hold the Named Demon has on his Contractor’s wrists, he alights gracefully into the air with a gentle flap of his wings, gliding over the prone human so that he is crouched in front of his face. With the free hand, the Named Demon snaps his fingers and the red suit fades away in a burst of black feathers. 

The Named Demon’s cock is already hard, pulsing and throbbing, and he has no qualms in shoving it straight past his Contractor’s lips, making him choke around it. The pleasure is shared with the Nameless Demon, for he occupies the body as well, but it’s dimmed. The Named Demon, however, groans and tightens his grip on his Contractor’s wrists. The hand that isn’t pinning him down reaches out and grabs onto soft brown strands, forcing his Contractor’s head down further on the large penis until he chokes, spasming and convulsing.

“Get it wet, Akechi,” the Named Demon snarls, “or you’re going to be in _much_ more pain when I stick my dick up your ass.”

Though shallow, one of the things that the Nameless Demon loves so much about his Contractor is his beauty, in the way his face and body look as if they are sculpted from the finest marble by a talented hand. Even drooling uselessly around the Named Demon’s length, eyes fixated right on the Named Demon’s face despite the tears welling up, his Contractor is a sight to behold.

 **Treat him like the treasure he is** , he says to the Named Demon, but the Named Demon simply snarls back at him, vicious and bestial.

“You whore,” the Named Demon spits. “Useless. Pathetic. How far you’ve fallen. How foolish I was to have looked up at you and thought of you as anything other than a cock-hungry slut in heat. You _really_ hid it well with your princely attitude, but you can’t hide from me anymore.”

The Named Demon pulls his Contractor off his cock, the force so great and sudden that he rips out several caramel strands. Thick strings of saliva drip from his Contractor’s open mouth, and the contract seal on his tongue is bright and visible, still pulsing with a dark red light from direct contact with the demon’s body. 

While the Nameless Demon loves touching and interacting with the seal, the Named Demon simply lets out a growl of disgust and tips his Contractor’s mouth closed with his clawed finger. He impatiently manoeuvres his Contractor’s slack body like a marionette, until the puckered asshole is positioned right in front of his glistening cock.

“Ren,” his Contractor says in a dazed voice. “Ren…” 

He tries to turn around, to keep the Named Demon in his line of sight, but the demon grabs hold of an asscheek, letting his claws sink in threateningly. His Contractor immediately faces the ground once more in a blatant display of submission.

“Let’s see if you got my dick wet enough this time, Akechi, or it’ll be like last time when I had to use your blood.”

And with that, the Named Demon shoves into his Contractor, pushing in despite the constricting tightness and convulsions and _screams_ , until he is buried to the hilt. Despite the sloppy blowjob, so wet that rivulets of spit had been dripping down the shaft, it still isn’t enough, and the Nameless Demon could see from the confines of the mind the blood dripping out from around the penis, running down his Contractor’s slim trembling legs. The Named Demon finally releases his Contractor’s wrists, satisfied at the casual domination of his master.

“You never get any better at that,” the Named Demon laughs airily, and he strikes his Contractor’s buttock once, eliciting a shout of pain as the Named Demon’s claws slash against the pale skin. Blood from the scratches mix with the crimson flowing out from the anus. The Named Demon bears down on his Contractor, leaning forward until his bare chest brushes against the human’s trembling back. 

Despite the tightness constricting his dick, the Named Demon starts to move, pistoning his hips swiftly and effortlessly, setting a cruel and merciless pace. The more his Contractor chokes on his screams, the faster he thrusts, and even from the confines of the mind, the Nameless Demon could feel the cruel smile twisting his facial expression. The Named Demon is enjoying the careless and harsh violence. 

It hurts, too. Even with his senses dulled from being pushed to the back of the mind, everything _burns_. But it seems that the Named Demon enjoys it, pushing in deeper and harder. 

“You’re so tight around me, Akechi,” the Named Demon hisses. “You’re really enjoying this, aren’t you? I remember seeing you, you know. When Shido first summoned me. I remember how you looked like back then.”

His Contractor’s only response is a hiccuped whimper. The brutal pistons of the Named Demon’s monstrous cock splitting him in half don’t leave him with much presence of mind to respond, let alone fully comprehend the Named Demon’s words. 

As if realizing this, the Named Demon pauses, pulling out until only the bulbuous head is still inside his Contractor. Blood speckles the shaft, already drying in the frigid air of the Shadow Dimension, but the Named Demon doesn’t even care about that. 

“You looked so beautiful, fucked out and broken. Like a doll, or a marionette. Shido wanted me to kill and eat you, probably, because that’s what most demons would have done. But oh, how I wanted to take you right there and then. Scoop out all the cum those filthy humans left in you and fill you up again until you knew that you’re _mine_.”

His Contractor whines, tensing and squeezing around nothing. “Ren,” he says yet again, as if it’s the only word he knows. 

“I hear you, slut. I’ll give you what you want.” 

The Named Demon shoves his dick back inside with a firm snap of the hips and the pace returns, supernaturally fast and brutal, to the point that a normal human would have passed out from the pain at this point. Based off the pained and hoarse screams of his Contractor, the Nameless Demon supposes that not even a human amped up by demonic magic could last much longer under such cruel ministrations.

Again and again, the Named Demon forces the human to take his unforgiving length, until finally, with a guttural hiss, he slams deep inside, grasping frantically at his Contractor’s bruised skin, trembling slightly as he pumps spurts of seed deep into the limp body. His Contractor cries out at the sensation of being filled with hot thick liquid, but when the Named Demon reaches down, the human’s dick is limp and dry.

When his Contractor is taken by the Named Demon, he almost never finds pleasure in the act, and that fact seems to be pleasurable in and of itself to the demon.

His Contractor trembles as he collapses onto the ground, twitching feebly and mumbling something incoherently. The Named Demon pinches him sharply on the hip, drawing blood, and he drawls, “Up and at it, sweetheart. Don’t think this is over yet.”

But the Nameless Demon could see that his Contractor was at his limit. Drawing forth all of his strength, he pushes forward and takes advantage of the Named Demon’s post-orgasm lethargy to shove him back into the mind scape, ignoring his other half’s furious snarls.

 **I’m not** ** _done_** **yet** , the Named Demon yells, slamming his clawed fists against the mental walls. **He hasn’t been punished nearly enough.**

The Nameless Demon ignores him and focuses on easing the penis out as gently as possible. Now that he’s in full control of the body, he feels as if the entire shaft is bruised and battered from the rough treatment it had been given. He doesn’t even want to imagine what his Contractor’s fragile insides look like. Without waiting for a command, he reaches down and slowly sinks his tongue inside, allowing the magic in his saliva to heal the bleeding skin and membrane.

His Contractor trembles and cries out weakly, scrabbling at the ground. “Not you,” he says, “I wasn’t done with Ren yet.”

It’s rare that his Contractor talks with him at all during these times and the Nameless Demon can’t help but tremble with the excitement. He withdraws his tongue and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. 

“He was going to break you,” he says.

“It’s what I deserve.”

“You don’t deserve that.”

“How would you know? You don’t know me. Don’t know what I was, and who I used to be.” His Contractor runs a shaking hand through his hair, lingering slightly at where the Named Demon had been clutching at before. “I…”

The Nameless Demon waits patiently, but his Contractor never finishes his sentence. 

With a soft sigh, he reaches out and gently manipulates his Contractor’s body until the human is facing him again, though he refuses to raise his head and allow the demon a proper look at his expression. He hates to see his Contractor like this. Always after the Named Demon has a turn in control. The human is supposed to be haughty and proud, always with his head held high and never letting the circumstances of his situation break him down. 

He isn’t supposed to look like this, especially as a result of his demon's actions. Not for the first time, the Nameless Demon curses himself for being this way, a broken excuse of a demon. He is not completely sure why he is like this, forced to share his existence with a hurtful monster, but he wishes nothing more than to purge the Named Demon from his mind. 

A demon is supposed to protect their master, but what can a demon do when the very thing hurting their master is themself?

The Nameless Demon doesn’t have an answer to that. Instead, he focuses on crooning softly as he strokes through his Contractor’s hair. He half expects to be shoved away, but it seems that the earlier activity tired his Contractor out too much. He lays there, eyes hooded, looking for all the world like a pampered cat.

“I killed Ren,” his Contractor says, apropos of nothing.

“Hmm?”

“I shot him right in the head, after tricking him for an entire month. Making him think we were friends. Everything he does to me now is what I deserve. Everything he says to me is true.”

He doesn’t understand why his Contractor is talking to him about this, hunched over as if in prayer. He isn’t the one who seeks to punish the human. He isn’t the one who wishes to see his penance. But then again, the Named Demon rarely gives him a thought other than when he is using him as a toy to fuck with and kick around. 

His Contractor still refuses to look at him, staring at the ground, as if the absolution he seeks is carved into the metal of the broken down subway.

The Nameless Demon reaches down and gently takes hold of his Contractor’s arms, hauling him up as if he was nothing more than a kitten. The shocked expression on his Contractor’s face when he looks up at the Nameless Demon is delicious, and he can’t help the hungry way he licks his lips, tasting the last remnants of blood and semen still on his tongue.

There is no struggle, the human still too weak from earlier, but he shifts nervously when the demon gently reaches down with a hand to stroke gently at the skin. He heals every bruise, scrape, and scratch he feels, until the skin is unmarred once more. 

“I’ll take care of you,” the Nameless Demon whispers softly in his Contractor’s ear. Their gazes, identical in crimson, lock, and for the first time, the Nameless Demon realizes that there is a light constellation of freckles over the bridge of the human’s nose, dusting his cheeks. He had never been able to get close enough to his Contractor’s face to see, and he burrows this knowledge deep inside of him, where not even the Named Demon could see it.

“You don’t need to,” his Contractor says, beginning to struggle somewhat in the Nameless Demon’s grip. “Didn’t you _hear_ me? I shot you when you were a human! You should kill me. Throw me away. Let me get eaten by a Shadow. You shouldn’t want to...to _take care_ of me!”

But that isn’t true, is it? The Nameless Demon has no memory of such a thing happening. He purrs softly in his chest and smiles as softly and warmly as he can down at his human, who looks up at him with a stricken look. His Contractor’s lips tremble and part to form a word, but before he can say that syllable again, the Nameless Demon closes his eyes and leans forward, claiming the human’s soft lips in a kiss.

It’s warm and sweet and gentle, and everything that the Nameless Demon imagined. He runs his tongue softly after the plush lips, and when his Contractor opens his mouth after a moment’s hesitation, he pushes inside. He chases the warmth, the taste, savouring all that his human has to offer him. 

He shifts, angling his Contractor so that he is right on top of his penis once more. He focuses his magic and clears the shaft of blood, replacing it instead with a viscuous fluid. He liberally coats the penis with it, eternally grateful at how flexible demonic magic is once you get the hang of it.

The Nameless Demon moves back, searching his Contractor’s eyes for any sign of fear or hesitation - emotions that he sees every time the Named Demon stakes his claim. “Is this alright with you?”

His Contractor holds his gaze and his only answer is a roll of his hips. Within seconds, his penis is engulfed in a warm and wet heat, pulsing and tightening deliciously up and down the shaft. He is generous with the moan, letting it vibrate through his chest, and he hears his Contractor echo it with a groan of his own. The healed membrane is hot and soft, and he’s still loose from the harsh fucking the Named Demon gave him earlier.

The Nameless Demon takes hold of his Contractor’s hips and slowly begins to move. It’s a steady pace, gently allowing the human to take the penis to the hilt, before slowly moving him back out, until the penis is almost completely out of the hole. He does not hasten the pace, careful that he allows his Contractor to take it slow and steady.

The slick leaking out from the cock burns hot - a new trick that he taught himself - and his Contractor jerks, his back arching and an aborted cry escaping his lips before he uses one hand to cover his mouth. 

“Wh-”

“Shh,” the Nameless Demon murmurs, licking away the tears and saliva and sweat on his Contractor’s face. “Let me take care of you. You deserve so much more than the Named Demon would ever give you.”

The more the Nameless Demon rolls his hips in that same mindnumbingly slow pace, the more his Contractor falls apart, shaking and trembling, whining brokenly at the pleasure assaulting his senses. The demon angles his thick and long penis just right, massaging the prostate with every thrust, secreting more and more of the aphrodisiac lube to heighten the pleasure, until his Contractor screams. 

He’s so weak from the previous assault that he can only jerk and spasm weakly in the Nameless Demon’s lap during his orgasm, tightening sporadically around the shaft deep inside him until the Nameless Demon climaxes as well. A thick stream of cum flows steadily deep into the human’s ass, until the Nameless Demon could feel a bulge start to form in the formerly flat stomach. He caresses it with a gentle hand and continues to thrust, his Contractor hiccuping and moaning distantly the whole time.

It goes on for hours. Days, even. Maybe. The lack of a day or night in the Shadow Dimension has never been more debilitating. The demon never slows down his steady pace, never thrusts faster. The whole time, the Named Demon is slamming his claws against the barrier of their mind, screaming for blood, for pain. But the Nameless Demon ignores him with practiced ease. He brings his master to climax again and again and _again_ , until his Contractor’s eyes are clouded over, his mouth agape with saliva leaking out. 

The Nameless Demon slinks his tongue into his Contractor’s mouth, kneading down on the dark red contract seal and allowing it to _burn_ with the connection. He pushes in deeper, exploring the cavern of the human’s small mouth, snaking his way down the throat, until he pushes forward to claim the lips with his own, biting at it viciously to draw blood. The one act of violence he allows himself, marking his Contractor as _his_ in a way the Named Demon never did. 

When he pulls away to see the human’s bruised and puffy lips, he purrs with satisfaction.

His Contractor hasn’t given an intelligible response ever since the sixth (or seventh?) orgasm, and the Nameless Demon finally allows his soft cock to slide out, the action smooth and easy with the amount of cum and aphrodisiac lube that had been pumped into the human. He’s so deep in subspace that he only manages a choked sound, and immediately, the Nameless Demon is there, stroking the human’s hair softly, wiping away the cum and sweat all over his body as best as he could with his claws.

It takes a while before his Contractor comes back to himself, and he looks up at the Nameless Demon with sleepy eyes.

“What did you mean by ‘the Named Demon’?”

The Nameless Demon thinks back on his conversations with his Contractor and realizes that he had never explicitly referred to the other him by name. It’s rare that he gets the chance to talk at all with his Contractor, who is so averse to the demon that he rarely even looks at him. A rush of affection surges through him at the attention.

“The other me,” he explains. “You gave him a name but you did not give me one. I am the Nameless Demon and he is the Named Demon. That is how it is.”

“His name is Ren. You don’t have to...call him that.”

The Nameless Demon shakes his head. “The name given to a demon by his master is precious. I cannot call him that in good faith. He is just another demon to me.”

His Contractor bites his lip. Then, he says, “Akira.”

The Nameless Demon rolls the unfamiliar name on his tongue. “A-ki-ra. A..kira. What is that?”

“Your name,” his Contractor says firmly. “That’s your name now.”

“Does it mean anything? Does the Named Demon’s name mean anything?” the Nameless Demon - Akira - asks excitedly. 

“It means ‘dawn’. And just call Ren ‘Ren’. I give you permission to do so, or whatever it is I need to say so you’ll stop referring to him as that.”

His Contractor does not answer the question about Ren, closing his eyes instead. When Akira gives his shoulders a gentle shake, he realizes that the human had fallen asleep, pushed to the limit between the two sessions with the demon.

Akira closes his eyes and wraps his wings tightly around his Contractor’s body to protect him from the chill of the Shadow Dimension. He sinks his mind into the mindscape and allows the bars holding the Named Demon - Ren - to fall away.

The aggression with which Ren glares at him is almost feral, like a Cerberus on the edge of attack. “You must feel all special now, getting a name from Akechi.”

Akira frowns. “He gave you your name too, did he not?”

“He didn’t give me _anything_ ,” Ren scoffs, but he looks away, peering out of the eyes of their shared body down at his Contractor, a foreign softness in his eyes. “Nothing I kept anyway.”

The uncharacteristic gentle tone stirs something in Akira’s chest and he tilts his head in curiosity, at himself and at his fellow demon. “What do you mean by that?”

“Nothing,” Ren snaps, immediately hostile once more. “It doesn’t matter anyway. This isn’t the Akechi I know. The Akechi I know would never debase himself like this to a monster, hunting down Shadows just because they _disrupt him_.”

It isn’t the first time that Ren and his Contractor talk about a _before_. A time from before they met during the ceremony, Akira gathers, but that’s impossible, because how could they have met, dimensions away? Neither Ren nor his Contractor have ever enlightened Akira, no matter how much Akira pries. 

He doubts he will ever get his answer. But he thinks he can provide one for Ren, in an act of charity. “If something as insignificant as that can change your feelings on our Contractor, then perhaps you never loved him in the first place.”

“I never loved him at all,” Ren shoots back, but the pain in his eyes tell another story. 

Akira watches him for a moment, but Ren does not move from his spot in the mindscape, his gaze fixed on the ground and his sharp teeth bared in a threatening gesture. Since Ren does not seem inclined to take over the body, Akira seizes control once more. 

He strokes his Contractor’s hair once. The warm feeling of being given a name still permeates his core, and despite knowing that his Contractor can’t hear him, he decides to test out the human’s name.

“Akechi,” he says. The warmth burns even brighter in his chest and if Akechi hears him, he gives no outward indication, snuggling closer to Akira instead.

**Author's Note:**

> The general context is that this is post bad end (Akechi shot Ren in the interrogation room) and Shido planned to sacrifice Akechi to kill two birds with one stone (get rid of his useless son and also summon a demon he can use as a more obedient supernatural assassin). Unfortunately he summons an amalgamation of interrogation room Ren and Yaldabaoth bad end Ren (who comes from a parallel universe). Why? Because. The demon forms a contract with Akechi instead, kills Shido, and Akechi is in hiding from the human world, wandering around a new dimension that's popped up from the remnants of the Metaverse.


End file.
